Thursday, 6 October 2016

Autumn is my absolute favourite time of year and as soon as I heard Lush we're bringing out this amazing Halloween range I just knew I had to stop by asap to pick some up! My nearest store is now in Exeter and all the staff there are so friendly and helpful.

I picked up a selection including this amazing pumpkin knot wrap, Magic Wand soap and Lord of Misrule shower cream.

Inside the pumpkin wrap were these delights - the Lord of Misrule & Pumpkin bath bombs, Boo bath melt and Sparkly Pumpkin bubble bar. The bonus is everything I picked up is vegan 👍🏻

My unexpected favourite is the Lord of Misrule shower cream, I'm definitely going to head back and get the biggest bottle of it I can get my hands on!

Thursday, 31 March 2016

I've had this a couple of times when out and about and had been looking forward to recreating it at home. When I finally managed to find some tinned jackfruit I just knew I had to make this ( tip - you need the type in water or brine, NOT syrup!). Strangely enough I've made something like this in the past using shredded cabbage for the 'meat' so already had a pretty good idea what I was going to do. This also tastes outrageously good with coleslaw so I'm going to let you in on a little secret - Tesco sell in their salad section a product called 'Pink Slaw'. It's basically just shredded cabbage, carrot and pickling vinegar. If you mix one TBSP of Veganaise into a tub of this you get pretty amazing vegan coleslaw, and pretty quickly!

Ingredients

2 tins (Young green) jackfruit

1 tsp oil

1/2 onion chopped

1 tsp brown sugar

1 tsp smoked paprika

1 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp mild chilli powder

Pinch cumin

1/2 cup vegetable stock

1 cup BBQ sauce

Pinch of salt & pepper

Open and drain your tins of jackfruit and give the contents a good rinse. Next, you'll want to chop out the hard core at the very centre of each slice in the tin.

Place your jackfruit into a bowl and coat well with the sugar, paprika, garlic powder, chilli & cumin.

In a large pan heat up the oil and sauté the onion until it begins to brown slightly. Add in the jackfruit and cook for a further 5-7 minutes.

Add in your vegetable stock. I use Marigold brand vegan powder made up with boiling water as per instructions on the packet. Add in your BBQ sauce - you could use homemade or store brought. Mix so that all the jackfruit is coated in the sauce and cook on a low heat for around 20-30 minutes. Stir often, you may need to periodically add a little water if the sauce becomes too dry at any point.

Once it is ready you will need to break up the jackfruit pieces to give the 'stringy' pulled look.

Tuesday, 29 March 2016

I've been wanting to go to Samphire Brasserie for the longest time - like literally. Mr B visited over a year ago when he was in Plymouth for work and I was seriously jealous - normally I get to visit all the best places too but when we lived in the Midlands it was pretty far away. Since we moved to Devon in December we've been exploring all the new food options that have opened up to us. Samphire is still over an hour away in the car, but I'm just going to come right out and say this - it's one of those rare places that is totally worth it. Pretty much the only other place we feel like that about is our beloved Veggie World in Milton Keynes. Word of advice! If you are planning a visit, book! We turned up the first time and wept all the way home as they were full.

The whole menu looked amazing and next time I go there are loads more things I'm looking forward to trying. This time I had the 'Big Moc' burger with fries - you guessed it, this is supposed to be pretty much like an imitation Big Mac. Now it has been like a million years since I ate a real one, but this thing was amazing. Samphire Brasserie make all their own seitan and vegan cheese so it was even better to have something 'homemade' and unique to them.

We also had a 'KFC' bucket to share between us so that we could try a bit of everything. It came with 'drumsticks', popcorn 'chicken', chips, coleslaw, beans and corn on the cob. This was pretty awesome too and Small especially loved the popcorn 'chicken' with the beans and this is a huge thing as she has never especially been a fan of faux meat. We were so completely stuffed by this that we had to pass up on the deserts and get some cake to take away and eat later. I didn't get a snap of this, but it was just as good as the rest of the food we had.

We also really liked the fact that it is now 100% vegan - not sure when this happened, but everything they serve is now vegan!

We will definitely be heading back there, especially as our Small person enjoyed it so much as well. If you are in the area you have to go and check it out.